Posts Tagged ‘pnid’

Wandering through the old streets of Cannes, the various advertisings and teasers are about online. Digital, you know, and social media. #canneslions 11 is going to be Social. For sure.

Sipping cooled drinks, awaiting the official start of the event, conversation goes on about the future. The future of advertising, communication, news, influencing. The future of some very influencing industries. And, apparently, between industrial quantities of Pastis and Pernod, it has been decided that that future is going to be digital. And social. For sure.

I, for one, think that this is missing the point entirely. I agree with The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University: the real future of advertising, communication, media buying and news lies exactly where it was in the past: in the ability to deliver a compelling message to a selected audience.

It does not matter if that community is on or offline. A good strategy is built around the connecting points, encompassing on- and offline, making sure to reach the community in the least intrusive way. Stop bringing the people to the mountain… move the mountain…

If you reach out to communities… do not forget you reach out to people, not to numbers, or dots on a chart… reaching out to people is pretty social in my book, it always was…

The key to success is still the ability to benefit from insights, to have the right empathy to feel the community, and to cleverly select the right mix of influencing channels.

Today, we live in a world where we are connected with friends and colleagues in every corner of the world. The digital media are providing us a huge amount of opportunities to share our most individual expressions and views on life, trends, kids or even more serious subjects like business. Even with those instant digital social interactions, it strikes me that, every now and then, we do need to get together with colleagues and business partners to share our knowledge and experiences by means of seminars and conferences.

Last week Porter Novelli organised a Global Conference for 170 managers worldwide in Coral Gables, Miami. I know, there are worse places in the world to attend a 3 day conference. Typically these kind of conferences are packed with breakfast sessions, presentations, workshops, receptions and dinners. No time to have a quick break or dive in the swimming pool.

This one was no different. But to be honest, I like the fast pace of these conferences: day and night blur into each other, the small amount of sleep you get is very intense and makes you drive on adrenaline. And that to me is the ultimate measure of a good conference: the vibes that you capture and exchange with hundreds of familiar and new faces from Beijing over Brussels to Buenos Aires.

Mark Goldstein, Vice-Chairman of BBDO North America, was one of the speakers who was able to energize the conference from day one with an interactive session about “Making The Tough New Business Decisions”. Before the conference all delegates were asked to read a case study about a high stake and unusual new business situation that happened with BBDO. The case study in itself was great but it got even more interesting when we were asked with a group of 12 people to decide what we would do in such a situation. The decision had to be made in 30 minutes. If only we would make those kind of tough decisions as quick in real life.